During 1999 and 2000 I learnt to find my way round the City of London, when we lived and worked there temporarily. This very old part of London, in which not only the ground plan of the medieval city but also the Roman city of Londinium can still be recognized, is now modern London’s centre of finance. Being in the vicinity of the City of London, the south bank of the river Thames opposite the Tower has become a real designers’ Mecca.

With the river as a natural guide, a pedestrian route had been laid out along the riverside, the millennium mile. From Tower Bridge it goes past the new Council House, designed by Norman Foster, to London Bridge and Southwark Cathedral. Then it goes further on to the recently built replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to finally end at the Tate Gallery of Modern Art, which has found accommodation in a former power station. Strolling along this pedestrian route one has a superb view of old London on the opposite side of the Thames. From the Tate Gallery one crosses the Thames on a daring new footbridge, also designed by Norman Foster, to reach St. Paul’s Cathedral.

In London I learnt to appreciate the talented, intelligent and humorous vision the English architects show in their work. The fact that they are not afraid of dealing with a historical city in such a playful way was something quite new to me.

Also totally new to me was my son Cristóbal’s way of thinking when he made a modern glass table and used a motor cycle frame as a support. Like his grandfather Marinus and his great-grandfather Johannes Zwollo he understands that there is a world of designing possibilities in the combination of art and technique.

Ilse Duyvestein, who made a plan for the town of Mitla in Mexico, showed great spontaneity in her graduation project. She gave new life to a dull and deathlike patio of a neglected pyramid complex by projecting a playground in it (a surprisingly good example of female architecture). Many Mexican architects are not prepared to think of a solution like this. Such inventiveness goes beyond our approach to designing as well. At the renovation of the Santa Catalina convent thirty years ago we respected the memory of the function a building or place used to have, even though this function had been long lost at the time.

Whereas I was looking at unspoilt nature itself as a source of inspiration for my designs as a student, these young designers (men and women!) regard their industrial and urban environment as a ‘jungle’ into which they, completely free from bias, would like to introduce a new order.

Tonny Zwollo